I had been thinking of adding this material to my site for the last six to eight months. What am I blabbering about? Well, it's about how the educational parties, particularly K-12 use their web-sites to announce they are players in the Internet field. As part of my web-based instructional design course for grad students, I require them to search the Internet for the good as well as the not so good in web-site design. This activity is used to get them to think about how different organizations present their web information. They discuss why one site is good, while another is not so good. They also discuss the amount of time and resources that may be applied to the endeavor.

Why look at K-12. One reason is the amount of time, training and resources districts are willing to provide to their personnel. Most districts are not funded adequately in this area. According to an ABC World News report (09/29/99), the average funding for teachers in software/technology training is $6.00/student, whereas hardware acquisition is $88.00/student. I mention this only because it has been my impression, when talking with teachers from around the country, that districts often relie upon overworked teachers, other school personnel, and volunteers to design their sites-they usually don't have adequate training to accomplish the job correctly. Therefore, whether school districts realize it or not, their homepage tells a lot about their commitment to technology, the training provided to their teachers as well as other staff members.

One of the requirements in my class is, they can't evaluate personal sites (these are expressions of one's personality), all others are fair game. I like for them to concentrate on educational sites. Of course during this stage of their education they just love to look at the instructional/informational sites of some of their other instructors-but these instructors are off limits, because for the most part those sites are personal ones. However, most of the time one or two just have to blurt out misdesigns based upon class discussions. Instead we get into critiquing organizational sites.

Another requirement is for these students go to the web-site known as "Web-Pages-That-Suck." Although this site deals with businesses and how they present their web information to the world, there is sage advise which can help my students in the design process of their instructional site.

Therefore this aspect of my site is a result of what they discover and the discussions that help to formulate their views and opinions. The examples on this site are used as discussion points. They are used to help foster in future technology leaders, the various reactions visitors to a web-site, can and will encounter, if they, as leaders chose to design their instructional web-sites in a particular manner.

The first "Not So Good" site I will discuss is a K-12 school. I was blown-away by the fact their homepage design left me wondering as to "what happened." The first "Good" site is in stark contrast to the other. Both of these districts are within a stone's throw of each other. I have eliminated the names and URLs of any site involved. Instead I have used screen shots to illustrate different aspects of a site-the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Not Good #1	Good #1
Not Good #2	Good #2